Subsurface
Reading Earth’s interior
Reflection seismic images of submarine landslides and gas-hydrate systems, and the physical, mechanical and electrical properties of the mantle.
Geophysics · Satellite remote sensing · Open research tools
I read the Earth from the inside out and from orbit, and I build the tools that let others do it too.
Geophysicist, University of SydneySatellite remote sensingEvidence for hazard, resource and climate decisions
- peer-reviewed papers
- 5
- conference contributions
- 5
- research studies
- 8
- hands-on tutorials
- 3
Where the work isBase: Sydney, 33.89°S 151.19°E
- Bihar, IndiaBihar Flood 2026: a record flood in a rain-deficit year25.61°N 85.14°E
- Taranaki Basin, New ZealandHow a giant submarine landslide moved: the Taranaki mass-transport complex≈ 39°S 173°E
- West Svalbard marginWhy methane hydrates are destabilising off west Svalbard≈ 79°N 9°E
- Southeast AustraliaThe mantle beneath southeast Australia≈ 37°S 146°E
- Maharashtra, IndiaClimate risks recorded in the sediments of India’s talavs≈ 19°N 75°E
- Ladakh, NW HimalayaMapping the rocks of the Nidar ophiolite from orbit≈ 33°N 79°E
A record flood in a rain-deficit year
In the first week of September 2026 the Ganga at Patna rose to its highest level on record, 50.58 m, even though Bihar’s own monsoon rain was 25% below normal. For the same flow, the river at Gandhi Ghat now peaks about 33 cm higher per decade than it used to.
5,227 km²
New water mapped by Sentinel-1 at the peak
4,878–5,592 km² for ±1 dB
50.58 m
Ganga at Gandhi Ghat, Patna, 6 Sep 2026
Previous record 50.52 m (2016)
50.5 lakh
People affected in 15 districts
5.05 million · official bulletins
Two-page policy brief: English · हिन्दी, with a PDF of each.
Research themes
All studies →From orbit
Measuring change from space
Radar flood mapping, multispectral and hyperspectral mapping of rocks, and satellite sounding of greenhouse gases.
Building
Open tools that make the science reusable
Peer-reviewed open-source software and reproducible pipelines, so that others can check, reuse and extend the methods.
Explore the data in 3D
All datasets →The Patna floodplain, a seismic cube and mantle models you can turn and slice in the browser, and hold in your hands in a VR headset.
Selected publications
All publications →2026
Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 131(3), e2025JB031830
2025
Sedimentary records from human-made talavs reveal climate risks in semi-arid watersheds of India
Quaternary Environments and Humans, 3(2), 100061
2025
SAnTex: A Python-based Library for Seismic Anisotropy Calculation
Journal of Open Source Software, 10(110), 6886
2022
Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 127(11), e2022JB025231
Tutorials
All tutorials →
Seismic data in Python · Part 1
Working with 3D reflection seismic datasets
Open the F3 North Sea 3D seismic survey (SEG-Y) with segyio, inspect its trace headers and inlines, plot an inline section, and store the whole volume as a labelled xarray Dataset saved to NetCDF.
- segyio
- xarray
- NumPy
- Matplotlib
Seismic data in Python · Part 2
Extracting attributes like similarity and spectral decomposition from 3D reflection seismic data
Starting from the F3 volume saved in part 1, compute spectral-decomposition attributes with band-pass filters and the Hilbert envelope, and a trace-to-trace similarity attribute in parallel with joblib.
- xarray
- SciPy
- joblib
- NumPy
Tutorial
Working with 3D geo-datasets and plotting
Load a 3D NetCDF Earth model of the Eastern Mediterranean with xarray, compute radial seismic anisotropy from shear-wave speeds, save it back to NetCDF, and visualise it as a 3D volume (PyVista), a depth slice and a cross-section (Matplotlib).
- xarray
- NumPy
- PyVista
- Matplotlib
Newsletter
Research updates and policy briefs
New studies, papers and two-page briefs for decision-makers, about once a month. The first brief covers the 2026 Bihar flood.